


Of Houses and Thieves

by BlueWolves



Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M, Magical Realism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:27:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25660597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueWolves/pseuds/BlueWolves
Summary: “I wasn’t taking anything,” Luka said, voice steady, belying the way his pulse jumped. “I was merely on a stroll. I'd gotten lost and intended to ask the owners of the house the way back into town. There was no answer, but I was sure a kind and honourable individual such as yourself wouldn’t have minded a poor, lost soul seeking shelter.”“You have my daggers in your pack, along with many of my other possessions, also,” Julien said flatly. “You are in my house uninvited and sneaking around silently. Like a little mouse.”
Relationships: Incompetent thief/Assassin whose house he tries to rob (OW), Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18
Collections: Rare Pairs Exchange 2020





	Of Houses and Thieves

**Author's Note:**

  * For [astrospecial](https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrospecial/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy reading this, astrospecial!!  
> Thank you so much to my beta, thank you for listening to my thoughts and encouraging me. You helped me make this so much better! <3

The house creaked and groaned for Luka, a symphony of sounds he’d learnt to expect. A protest as Luka walked down the dark, empty hallway, as silent as a mouse; a shudder as Luka carefully peeled open a door and made his way in, shutting it just as quietly. 

The older the house, the more alive it appeared. A silent and angry witness - but ah well, what could you do?

“Oh, no need to be so angry now,” Luka cooed, helping himself to the various drawers and cupboards with glee. Roughly rifling through them to find anything and everything worth even half a penny, Luka shoved the drawers back in without even attempting to put the contents inside back to normal. “You have so many things, I’m sure you can spare a few for a poor, needy man like myself, no?”

Only a low rumble answered him. Luka ignored it. 

“Eventually you will fade, you will wither,” Luka said, idly patting the wall as he walked down the hall, eager to pick another room. “How could you keep all of this to yourself? These treasures will see the world, travel wide and far, find new love and new homes. Won’t that be better than being stuck here? They could last a hundred years.”

The door Luka touched creaked, a low warning. “Come now,” Luka said, opening the door without hesitation. “There’s no need to make such a fuss.”

An armoury of sorts awaited him. No drawers or cupboards, merely rows of neatly placed daggers of all shapes and sizes. Some ornamental - a bit too over done to be of any use, in Luka’s humble opinion - and some plain and deadly. Luka ignored the simple daggers, inspecting a gem-encrusted one. To his surprise, the blade was wickedly sharp, enough to nick him when he placed his finger against the tip. 

“A collector of daggers?”

Nothing had come up about that. The owner of the house was a quiet, hermit of a man, yet with a surprising wealth of rumours surrounding him. _He had a cache of treasure within his house_. He was a wanted fugitive; perhaps he’d murdered someone or some such. Probably a prince on the run from his responsibilities, or the prince of a fallen kingdom, they could never decide on that one. All possibilities, but nothing definite; the danger of a small town with no source of entertainment. They made their own. 

With so many, surely a few wouldn’t be missed. 

Luka clicked his tongue at the petulant, _pointed_ silence, rubbing his thumb over the biggest jewel in the dagger's center. “Is that any way to behave for your advanced years?”

Luka laughed as the floorboards almost seemed to quiver underneath him. There was power, for sure, but not quite strong enough. Not yet. All the better for Luka that he didn’t have to avoid doors slammed into his face or floorboards jutting up intending to trip him; cupboards that stubbornly stayed shut no matter how hard he tried or cajoled.

“Well,” Luka said, breezily, packing up the most ornamental of the daggers before pausing, and taking the ones that were aged too. They could fetch a good price if they were from the right period, and if not, Luka was sure he could pass them off as such anyway. “It’s been fun, but now I must say a _dieu._ Perhaps we may meet again! Know that I will think of you often.”

The annoyed rumble brought laughter to Luka as he walked backwards, his thoughts already turning towards where he would go, who he could pawn off his new items to - 

Only for it to come to a screeching halt when he bumped into someone. Luka barely had time to process before there was a dagger at his throat and an arm wrapped around his middle. 

_Fuck!_

A second passed - a year, a decade, caught in a hold Luka didn’t dare break out of, all too aware of the dagger and how the slightest of slips could lead to his death. His captor - the owner? - didn’t speak. Only Luka’s harsh, panicked breathing filled the otherwise silent room. 

A soft rumble underfoot, a little like laughter. 

_If, when, I get out of this, I shall burn you until nothing remains, and then I shall take your ashes and throw them into yet another fire, so that your ashes will burn also,_ the first thought to break through the terror.

“You’ve made yourself at home, haven't you?” Luka’s breath hitched as they spoke directly into his ear. The voice was cool and crisp, with an accent that didn’t match any of the townsfolk, words enunciated carefully. “You’ve walked on my floors and entered my rooms, and now you’ve found my daggers - which ones have you taken, hm? That one… oh, and that one too. We don’t have much taste, now do we?

“This…” The owner - Julien, Luka remembered, the owner’s name had been Julien - ever so slightly increased the pressure of the dagger at Luka’s throat. Luka didn’t dare to breathe or move or even swallow, lest it pierce him. “This is far more valuable than those. It has a twin, right there, see? Surely you weren’t going to leave that behind, now were you?”

“I wasn’t taking anything,” Luka said, voice steady, belying the way his pulse jumped. “I was merely on a stroll. I'd gotten lost and intended to ask the owners of the house the way back into town. There was no answer, but I was sure a kind and honourable individual such as yourself wouldn’t have minded a poor, lost soul seeking shelter.”

“You have my daggers in your pack, along with many of my other possessions, also,” Julien said flatly. “You are in my house uninvited and sneaking around silently. Like a little mouse.”

“Irrelevant, can you prove I put them there?” Luka asked, ignoring Julien although he bristled at the comment. Like a little mouse, indeed. Luka took pride in his work, thank you very much! There was none better than him. None. “Did you see me take them and put them in my bag? Perhaps they fell in. Perhaps someone planted them there, intending to frame me.”

A startled silence stretched over the seconds before, to Luka’s disbelief, Julien snorted. “Has this ever worked, to your knowledge?” 

No, no it hadn’t, but there was a first time for everything! Luka liked to pass himself off as an optimist when able, when it worked in his favour. There was always a first for everything, Luka had just yet to find it - and he intended to make it through this to give it a solid go. 

“No answer, then?” Julien let out a theatrical sigh, the dagger shifting ever so slightly over Luka’s throat, and Luka had never before had such an intense desire to take something hard, something heavy, and hit someone across the face with it. Asshole. “A pity. Perhaps I could have spared you a few more moments to say goodbye to the world, but I grow weary of this.”

An expectant pause. 

Luka didn’t answer immediately, though he keenly felt the seconds ticking by. He went over his options: what would be his best chance of getting out alive? Bribery? Money? There were many good options, but what would work on Julien? 

This, Luka thought, might have gone better if he’d done a little more research on Julien. The ‘probably a murderer’ bit was looking to be the clear winner. The townsfolk would be pleased and frustrated in equal measures. Some would be going home with filled pockets from hard-won bet money. 

“If you do not start talking, I will cut open your throat, as you do not seem to have much use for it.” 

“I hadn’t intended to take much, only a little,” Luka said unashamedly, changing tactics. Anything to keep the dagger out of his neck. “You won't even miss them, and then I'll be gone and out of your life, to both of our satisfactions. That is still on the table! Merely unhand me and I will be on my way.”

“Well, if that had been your goal, taking a little and leaving me bereft of your company, being _quiet_ , I think, would have been a start.”

“You heard me - ”

“Antagonise my house? Yes,” Julien said blithely, talking over Luka, though the point of the dagger pressing ever so harder into his neck shut Luka up quicker. “You were quite loud. I thought thieves made a token effort at subterfuge. Has so much changed? Hm?”

Luka resisted the urge to slam the back of his head into Julien, though he’d never been so tempted, the possibility of slitting his own throat be damned. At least he’d have those precious few moments before death took him to enjoy Julien’s pain. His lips curled.

Alas, Luka had no desire to die. 

“I didn’t think anyone was home,” Luka bit out.

“Ah.” Julien's amusement was still clear in the corners, though covered up by a veneer of calm. “I can see how it might have slipped your mind to check if someone was not in their own home.”

The silence could have been awkward if it wasn’t for the palatable enjoyment of his captor, if it weren’t for the knife at his throat taking the ‘almost uncomfortable’ silence straight into ‘what the absolute fuck’ terrifying kind. 

“I lost track of time,” Luka said honestly, as it had been the only thing so far that had stayed Julien’s hand. “I hadn’t intended to stay this long. I forgot to leave.”

Luka tensed as the dagger gently bumped against his throat, prepared for the agony that would come, only to realise that Julien was… laughing. At him. Luka grit his teeth in annoyance, wishing he could punch Julien’s no doubt annoying face. Wishing, too, that he could take an axe and tear down a few doors, see if there would be so much smug, pointed humour in the air then. 

“You are not very good at this, are you?” Julien said, stance relaxing by the second. The dagger merely rests against Luka’s throat, rather than digging in, but Luka didn’t let down his guard. Instead, Julien’s words fed into Luka’s anger at the situation. The outrage built until Luka could almost forget how fucked he really was, how he could still be if it took a turn for the worst. 

Some would look at it like a gift, to be free and presumably spared. No one would think twice about a thief killed on someone's property. 

“Not go _od? Do I come and insul - ”_

“Have you had much training, or did you just stumble upon this vocation?” Julien asked, not waiting for Luka to finish. Luka was sorely tempted to just shout over Julien, but didn't want to risk the dagger digging into his throat once more. “Did you decide it would be the easiest thing in the world to find and take and leave?”

“There’s not much to it, is there?” Luka said, a little sulkier than he wanted to admit. “You grab whatever looks valuable and get out. Instant money, no extra work.”

“You seem to have forgotten a step there.”

“Is this the torture before you kill me?” Luka said, eye twitching. “You go over my many failures and then you kill me, do you get off on that? God, you _are_ a serial killer, aren’t you? You probably talk your victims into begging for death just to get away from you!”

When Julien touched his shoulder, Luka got ready to flee or scream into his ears or do something - anything - before he got a dagger to the stomach or something. That had always been a common theme wherever he went, whatever friends he made. ‘You’re gonna get yourself stabbed with that mouth of yours.’ He’d never paid it much mind. 

Fuck, if he could, Luka would go back and stab himself. 

Whatever plan he’d come up with - torn between shrieking and trying to run - died when all Julien did was pull him around, letting him see Julien for the first time. Scars were the first thing he noticed, a fine web of scars delicately trailing up over Julien’s cheek and over his eye. 

The second thought, because his cock would be the next thing to get him killed, was an awareness that Julien could be considered _pretty_. Julien’s mouth twisted up a little, a confident sort of amusement. Even with Luka free, Julien still considered himself in charge, still thought nothing of what Luka could do. 

It was irritating as fuck. (And kind of hot, but Luka batted that thought away the instant it appeared. Luka had never been one for impulse control, but it was never too late to start, and there was that little issue of how Julien had held a dagger to his throat. A little hard to get past that.)

“No, this is not torture. I’m merely enjoying myself. And I wouldn’t mind enjoying myself more.” Julien paused, and the whole house appeared to pause with him, every creak and groan cut off abruptly, waiting for Julien to continue. The silence was… almost more unnerving than having a dagger at his throat had been. “Perhaps you would like some of that training, to rid yourself of your many failures?”

Luka took a moment to process that - acknowledge and accept the shock - before reacting.

“What the fuck? You were just going to kill me, and now you want to, what, train me? What makes you think I’m even coming near you again once I get out of here?”

“I would not have killed you,” Julien said with a sunny smile, as if the words didn’t send an intense wave of irritation through Luka. “Who would have paid me for it? Your corpse? No, I merely would have maimed you a little and left you outside to find your own survival. If you had died, it would be no fault of mine.”

If looks could kill, Julien would have been dead ten times over. As if Luka would have let it been that easy, who did Julien think he was? Julien was a hermit in a town whose only pleasure was trying to guess what flavour of dick he was, Julien’s house was just as much of a dick as he was, and he had a collection of daggers that would make an assassin weep…

He had snuck up on Luka as easy as breath, while the shadows seemed to cling to him and…

Oh. 

Oh, _fuck._

Luka looked from Julien to the collection of daggers and back again, Julien’s smile growing a touch wider at the way Luka’s face paled. 

“You’re a - ” Luka couldn’t bring himself to say it, to acknowledge his own utter stupidity. There had been many times in his life where he had leapt before thinking, where things could have been cleaner if he’d only stopped for a moment to properly consider things, and this just might be in his top ten moments of _I’ve fucked up_. 

No, definitely top five.

“Half-retired.”

“Wha - ? Half-retired? How the fuck does an assassin _half-retire_?”

“By taking a break from murder and bloodshed,” Julien said, “it’s easy, I highly recommend it.”

“You’re an asshole,” Luka said, scathingly. 

Luka almost bit his tongue when he realised that he’d back-talked an assassin; Luka might have brought amusement to Julien, enough that Julien didn’t want to kill him though he’d been robbing his house, but that didn’t mean it would last. Luka planned to be long gone by the time Julien grew tired of him, but until then, playing along might be the safest bet. 

_Maybe I should have bashed his nose in when I had the chance_ , Luka reflected. It would have been easier, Luka would be dead and away from this bullshit, and Julien would be in pain and have to get rid of a body. A perfect world. 

“Am I to be polite to the person intending to rob me?”

Luka glared at Julien. “Fine, you know what, say I even wanted to, which I’m not, why the hell would you want to? What do you get out of it? Do you need me to steal something?”

“No,” Julien said, “if I had a need for something, it would be mine, soon enough.”

“Then why?”

Julien tilted his head, and Luka grit his teeth, fucker. Julien just had to be pretty; his eyes were dark and emotive. His hair was fine and lovely.

Luka liked fine and lovely things.

“I’ve been bored,” Julien said, with an idle shrug. “I have no other reason to give.”

“You’re - you’re - !” Luka sputtered, struggling to find the right word to describe the absolute insane turn his life had just taken. Being killed had been on the cards, being imprisoned, whatever, but his intended victim offering to train him? His intended victim, that turned out to be an assassin? What the fuck. “I don’t even… What can you even teach me? How to kill someone? No thanks, not my thing.”

“I’m sure I can show you some things,” Julien said, looking far too calm and unbothered for Luka’s liking. Luka had been robbing him, and Julien was acting as if it was the most interesting thing to happen to him! “At the very least, how to be quiet, I think, could be something we could work on, hm?”

“And you’re just going to, what, teach me out of the kindness of your heart?” Luka taunted, boldly getting into Julien’s space, comfortable now that Luka knew death wasn’t on the table just yet. Julien’s fault if he found out he couldn’t handle Luka later, no take-backs, sweetheart. “This is your retirement, Julien? Going around training all the pretty thieves you catch?”

“Confident, aren’t you?” Julien murmured, just as damnably amused as ever and, fuck, what Luka would give to make him _break_. 

Apparently, Julien being an assassin wasn’t enough of a turn-off. 

“Am I wrong?”

Fingers tangled in Luka’s hair, roughly pulling at the short strands, forcing Luka into a better angle. Julien’s mouth hovered over Luka’s, so close that Luka could feel the way his lip curved into a wicked smile. “You have a misconception, I think. I didn’t say that the training would be free, now did I? What kind of mentor would I be, if I taught you to be taken for a fool?”

Julien pulled him into a kiss before Luka could even attempt a reply. 

It was rough and sharp and everything Luka wanted - but if Julien thought Luka would be making it fucking easy for him, Julien would be sorely disappointed. Biting Julien’s lip, blatantly enjoying the way he hissed and pulled back, Luka pushed Julien against the wall - irritated at Julien's huff of laughter, turned on by the groan Julien let out when Luka pulled him back into the kiss, and just fucking ready for their clothes to be off. 

“We’re not being very patient, now are we?” Julien said, a touch out of breath, letting out a hiss as Luka sunk his teeth into his neck. 

“ _Fuck_ your patience.”

Before Luka knew it, Julien had reversed their positions - Luka’s back against the door, it shuddered underneath his shoulder blades. Pissy but Luka didn’t care, not when Julien was looking at him from beneath his lashes, all soft and lovely. The door could fucking eat him, and Luka wouldn’t care, just as long as Julien kept _touching_ him. 

“Now, now, perhaps if you learnt a little patience, we might make a better thief out of you yet, hm?” Julien whispered in his ear. It made Luka’s breath hitch, 

Julien grabbed hold of Luka’s face, rubbing his thumb across his cheek, “we should start now, I think, there’s no time like there present, is there?”

“... _What_?”

“That is to say, you shall have to earn it,” Julien said, nuzzling Luka’s cheek with his nose, “that will help you, won’t it? You won’t get anything for free, little mouse. You’ll have to learn how to _find and take and leave_ properly, then maybe I’ll give you your reward, hm?”

Luka stayed against the door, aroused and angry and disheveled. His ear was still tingling where Julien had whispered, and he still felt the warmth of Julien’s nose across his cheek. Luka longed to grab hold of Julien, to insist on his reward; wasn’t an incentive a good thing? To make someone go after the end goal?

The way Julien played with his dagger stayed both his words and feet. 

“I thought you weren’t going to train me for free, what happened to your payment?” Luka said, petulant, frown only deepening at the way the door shuddered underneath him. Laughter. Fucking asshole of an house. 

“You can let me worry about my payment.”

Luka shoved a hand through his hair - first he’d almost died, then he almost got lucky, and now he was leaving with his dick still half-hard. “This is going to suck, I can already tell,” Luka said, opening the door that was suddenly so cooperative, pointedly not taking the bag filled with Julien’s items. “I can already envision it - we’re going to kill each other, or worse, this will end terribly, I hope you’re happy.”

“Perhaps,” Julien said, a wolfish touch to his smile, all softness gone. “It would not be an unwelcome change. Come back tomorrow, as quickly as you can manage. I can feel your bad habits infecting me by the moment. We should take care of them, don’t you think?”

“ _Fuck you_.”

“Maybe,” Julien said, serenely, “if you impress me.”

  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
